


Trick or Treat

by tminuseternity



Category: Generation Kill
Genre: Crossdressing, Domestic Fluff, Halloween, Inappropriate Gourd Handling, Inappropriate Pumpkin Carvings, M/M, Rocky Horror Picture Show References, You do the math
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2020-06-02 05:38:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19435006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tminuseternity/pseuds/tminuseternity
Summary: Nate and Ray are intellectuals who know that Frankenstein is the name of the man, not the monster.





	Trick or Treat

**Author's Note:**

> *insert free PC check meme* Halloween fic? In my summer? It's more likely than you think!!
> 
> I'm the kind of person who takes a break from writing by writing something else and I've been hella blocked on my major fic so enjoy this Halloween flavoured domestic fic that has been haunting (heh) my drafts since last October.
> 
> This fic contains sexual references and dick jokes, so. You know. Continue, nothing unusual here.

Nate pauses in his slow stroll through the supermarket aisle and stares at the section of shelves in front of him, a cascade of black and orange right across from the backyard barbecue party supplies. The section is small but still—it’s _there._ “It's August. It's August, right?”

But he’s too late. Ray is already reaching for a tabletop haunted theater display complete with a skeleton band and dancers.

“ _Nate…_ ” He presses the play button and his face lights up when the skeletons begin to move. Before the song is even over he grabs a boxed set and puts it in the cart behind the potatoes, as if not being able to see it will make Nate forget a Halloween decoration will be entering his house in the middle of August.

“I know what you're going to say,” Ray starts before Nate even knows how to respond. “You're going to say, ‘Ray, don't we have that vampire house that smokes? Do we really need another haunted house the same size?’ And the answer to that is hell yes we do, because this one plays music and it's on sale. You know how much I love skeletons. I am _pro_ skeleton. I’ve got one of my own and I even borrow yours! Get it? Cause we _bone_.”

The laughter is startled out of Nate, and it makes the old woman debating plastic plate colours across the aisle jump and look around.

“Actually I was going to say I like the Frankenstein one better.” He had forgotten about the vampire house they already had until Ray brought it up, and he doesn’t even want to try to understand the business strategy of a Halloween sale in August. That doesn’t mean he’s going to make this _easy_ for Ray.

Ray blinks at him then looks back at the shelf. “Oh.”

Reveling in the indecision he’s created for Ray and hiding his grin poorly, Nate says, “I’ll buy one. If you want more than that you’re on your own.”

It takes a five minute in depth analysis and side by side comparison but there comes a point where Nate can tell which one Ray will pick and now he's just stalling before he has to give Nate the satisfaction.

“Okay, fuck it, you win, Frankenstein it is.” He puts it in the cart and takes the skeleton one out. 

Because Ray loves Halloween but he loves it more when Nate enjoys it, so really, the bright, tacky, green and purple Frankenstein lab with storm sound effects is the only true option. 

“Where’s my thank you?”

Ray kisses him quick while the boy stocking shelves is turned away.

🎃

Nate is lying on the couch with a good book when the floor squeaks somewhere behind him. He knows what's coming but he's still not entirely prepared when he looks over his shoulder. 

He tenses, then laughs. There's a giant horse head right next to the couch watching him read. 

A hand reaches up to pull off the rubber mask by the mane, revealing a grinning Ray. 

Nate raises an eyebrow. “A horse?”

“Figured I'd start light this year,” Ray says, and leans over the edge of the couch to kiss Nate's cheek.

Nate checks his watch for the date, and yup, it's October first. Fall has snuck up on him. 

Ray stands and tosses the mask aside with a flourish. “Come and help me make the place spooky!”

🎃

Ray has the tendency to decorate so thoroughly that Nate always finds decorations where he least expects it. One year he found miniature zombie figurines the size of his thumb in every single kitchen cupboard. He once took out a jar that he thought was olives but was actually a jar of fake eyeballs (which he promptly dropped, but it was made of plastic so unfortunately it survived). There are endless fake spiders involved every Halloween, and usually scorpions and beetles too (but never in the bedroom, a rule that was established years ago). Sometimes Ray puts masks in odd places on the off chance Nate will look for something behind the TV or under the bathroom sink. It’s almost a nuisance, except that it never is when he sees how happy it makes Ray. 

The part Nate enjoys most about decorating for Halloween is the pumpkin carving. Every year they drive out to a farm to pick out pumpkins and every year, without fail, Ray convinces him they need the fattest, ugliest ones. 

“If we don't love it, who will?” Ray says, hugging the most deformed pumpkin Nate has ever seen to his chest. 

“If it was grown in the middle ages they would have accused it of causing the plague.”

Ray doesn't hear him. He’s already checking out the next table which is piled high with gourds. “Nate, holy shit, this gourd looks like a dick!”

“Excuse me!” a woman exclaims, ushering her children away from the table. 

“Oh, my sincerest apologies, ma'am, I meant phallus. You can’t deny it.” 

“It does no—” Nate says, ignoring the woman's dirty look, but it kind of does. So he switches gears. “You can't buy that. Not unless you want all the kids in the neighbourhood to skip our house.”

“What?” Ray looks heartbroken. Having no kids to give candy to would ruin Ray's entire November until the Christmas cheer infects him. 

“Parents will complain.” The woman now on her way to the payment table with her children is a prime example. “Our reputation as the friendly neighbourhood gay couple will be slandered.”

Ray schools his expression into serious agreement. “We can’t let that happen.”

“No, we can’t.” They haven’t spent three years cultivating trust with their neighbours to ruin it for a dick gourd.

Ray sidles closer. “But we could keep it for decoration inside,” he suggests, running his hand over the gourd. “Please, baby? I want it _so bad._ ”

Ray giving him bedroom eyes as he strokes a gourd is not something Nate expected to see today. He does a terrible job of keeping a straight face, and they both know it, so in the end he gives in and laughs.

They leave the farm with five ugly pumpkins, one picture perfect one—because Nate is a pussy, according to Ray, and he'll just be teaching impressionable young minds that only beautiful things can be loved, to which Nate replied, “it's a pumpkin”—and an assortment of squashes, mini pumpkins and gourds, including the one Ray had his hands all over. 

Pumpkin carving in their house is competitive. They each have a carving set, a sharpie, a notebook and an hour per pumpkin. The stakes are placed—this year it's whether they should get a husky or a labrador—and the kitchen table turns into a Vitamin A bloodbath. 

“It's hardly fair,” Nate says, stabbing through the top of a pumpkin that Ray picked out. “This pumpkin is a shitty canvas.” The only benefit is that they were half the price of the healthy looking ones. 

Ray shrugs, not looking up from what he's drawing in permanent marker onto his pumpkin full of boil-like bumps. “You did this to yourself, you bought them. You shouldn't have caved.”

He’s right. He’s always right. Every damn year Nate falls for the face Ray makes when he decides he’s in love with a pumpkin. “I hate that I can’t say no to you.”

Ray smiles, dimples dotting his cheeks. It’s incredibly distracting.

“Stop it.”

“Stop what?”

“Stop trying to distract me with that smile.”

That doesn’t help his cause in the slightest.

“The nice one is mine,” Nate adds, in case Ray's thinking of stealing it. He's absurdly fast at carving pumpkins. 

When all six pumpkins are carved and they're both sweating and covered in pumpkin guts they reveal their creations to each other. Nate has carved three different faces, and he strategically used the shitty pumpkins first as practice for the final perfect pumpkin. Ray has one ghost face with round eyes and an ‘o’ for a mouth, a scary face with jagged teeth and a screaming mini pumpkin in its mouth, and the last one is…

“I knew it.” Just like how every year Nate buys whichever pumpkins Ray wants, every year Ray carves a dick into a pumpkin. They’ll have to keep it inside next to the gourd.

“I put something on the other side, look.”

On the other side of the pumpkin is a carving of a butt. 

Despite Ray's last pumpkin Nate knows he has to concede the win, but he's not mad. 

“I guess we're getting a husky.” 

Ray beams, pulls Nate closer with sticky pumpkin hands on his neck and kisses him. 

🎃

Nate is almost to the end of the chapter when Ray says, “A-ha! Yes!” and scribbles something on the page in front of him. “Nevermind,” he mutters a minute later. This is the third time this chapter and Nate decides to throw in the towel. He puts his book away and settles on his left side, facing Ray.

Ray is cross legged on top of the duvet, frowning at his notebook. “Fuck that,” he says under his breath, scratching something out. 

Nate reaches out to tug on the hem of shirt. “Get down here.”

Ray leans back until his head hits the pillow and stretches out his legs, still holding the notebook above his face. 

“Come on, get under.”

Ray must still be in thinking mode because he complies without comment, shuffling around to get under the sheets. Finally Nate has him where he wants. He wraps an arm around Ray's waist underneath his t-shirt and drops his head against Ray's shoulder. 

“What are you working on?”

Ray's notebook is covered in random words, character names and messy sketches. 

“Trying to come up with costume ideas for that party next weekend.”

“Couples costumes?” Most of the ideas are in pairs or correspond to another somehow. They only started making an effort to coordinate costumes about two Halloweens ago when Ray insisted they attend a party as bacon and eggs. Nate deleted the photos but he knows for a fact Ray didn’t.

“Yeah.” Ray's face is thoughtful and he taps his pencil on the page. 

Nate scans the page again, now with the context in mind. “Why did you scratch out Frankenstein and his monster? That's a good idea.”

“Really? I didn't think you'd like it.”

Nate props himself up on his elbow so he can see Ray's face fully. “Why not?”

“Frankenstein wasn't really into his monster, you know?”

It takes Nate a moment to understand—and then _oh, oh he's so stupid,_ and Nate can't do anything other than lean down and kiss him. 

“It's just a costume,” Nate says against his lips. 

“It doesn't mean shit, I know—”

Nate plucks the notebook and pencil out of his hands and stretches over Ray to put them on his night table. Instead of moving back to his own side he stays above Ray, settling his weight almost fully on Ray and leaning down to kiss his neck. “It’s time for you to stop thinking so hard. You’re not very good at it.”

“Wow, I can't believe this, being ridiculed by my own partner. You know maybe Frankenstein _is_ appropriate, you the cruel madman and me, a sad monster just looking for a little love from my creator—”

But his hands are making their way down Nate's sides under the sheets, and they both know he's not offended at all. 

“You know,” Nate says thoughtfully, after kissing Ray again, “if it really bothers you we could go as Rocky and Frank N Furter.”

Ray's grin is slow and wicked. 

🎃

So that's what they do. They go to work parties as Frankenstein and his monster, and for the party they throw at their own place they dress as Frank N Furter and Rocky. There are two benefits to this: they don't have to think about the logistics of covering up for the chilly weather and undressing at someone's house, and they won't scandalize any of Nate's “super serious lawyer people” (Ray’s words) colleagues. 

Nate gets the easy part. They don’t need to discuss roles; Nate as Rocky and Ray as Frank N Furter just makes sense. He buys a pair of shiny gold boxers and calls it a day. Ray spends more time shopping for his costume, and he doesn't let Nate see any piece of it until the night of the party. 

“Ray, it's almost seven.”

“Beauty takes time, bitch!” Ray yells from the bathroom. The door is open a crack but Ray will skin Nate if he tries to peek inside. 

He's still not ready when the doorbell rings a couple minutes later so Nate answers it alone, and without Ray his costume doesn't make much sense. 

“So you're a stripper?” Ray's friend Amanda asks, obviously eyeing him despite—or maybe because of—her boyfriend standing right next to her, the Fred to her Daphne. He rolls his eyes. “Is that it?”

“Wait until Ray comes down,” Nate says, standing back to let them in. “It'll make sense.”

“Unless he's a mailman and you're the package I don't— _oh._ ” They're both staring behind Nate. “Yeah, ok. _Damn,_ Ray.”

Nate turns and sees Ray coming down the stairs, a pair of heels in his hands, and all he can say is, “Wow.”

He hasn't bothered with a wig but otherwise the costume is spot on. He has leather everywhere—vest, shorts, wrist cuffs—and he’s wearing fishnet tights, blood red lipstick, dark eye makeup and a string of pearls around his neck. Together their costumes are instantly recognizable.

“Yeah, I can't walk in these plastic death traps and these shorts are _way_ too fucking tight—”

“You look good.” Nate looks him up and down, letting his eyes linger on the tight leather, and when he looks back up to his delight Ray is red. “You look _really_ good.”

Ray quickly recovers and comes over to Nate, slipping an arm around his waist. “You’re not so bad yourself. What do you say we go back to mine and do the time warp?”

They all laugh, the doorbell rings again and the party begins. Ray proclaims Nate’s costume to be complete when he leaves a red kiss mark on Nate’s cheek and goes to start mixing drinks. Nate counts the minutes until he can kick everyone out and drag Ray back upstairs.

🎃

When it comes to candy Nate usually picks it up on his way home from work a few days prior, so he gets the final say. Usually. 

Candy buying this year coincides with their weekend grocery run. They’re in the gigantic candy section of the store on opposite sides of the aisle crammed with chocolate bar value boxes in a pseudo Mexican standoff. Ray is clutching the Milky Way box like his life depends on it. Nate has a variety box that contains Snickers in his hands. A dad gives them a strange look as he walks through their staring contest with his toddler.

“I can't believe I married a heathen,” Ray mourns, heaving a sigh. “I want a divorce.”

He knows what Ray's doing, trying to distract him enough to give in, but even though something squeezes in his chest at the thought of _marriage_ and _Ray_ together he won't give up. “We're not married.” 

“If we were this would be grounds for a divorce.”

“Not in a court of law.” Nate is a lawyer, he would know.

“Babe. Milky Way is the _superior_ choice.”

Nate shakes his head. “Snickers has a better ratio of caramel to chocolate—”

“Milky Way is nut free!”

“That doesn't matter.”

“What if the kid is allergic?”

“Then the parents will eat it, or give it to someone who can. It's not going to go to waste.”

Nate has already run the numbers and knows they don’t need both. They already have lollipops, chips, Starbursts, Nerds, and mini tubes of toothpaste (at Nate’s insistence) for each of their planned sixty treat bags, not to mention twenty full size bars for the early birds. Ray insists on those, and Nate likes to think it helps their reputation if the kids thank them as reverently as if they’re rockstars.

Ray sighs, seeing that he's not going to win, and holds out a closed fist for rock paper scissors.

“Best of three?” Nate says, and they shake on the agreement. Nate wins on the third round and grins triumphantly. 

Ray grumbles and puts his box back, but not before using it to whack Nate on the ass. They get halfway through the next aisle when Nate stops the cart and leaves it with Ray.

“Nate?”

“Hold on.” He comes back with the Milky Way box and throws it in the cart before grabbing the handle again. 

Ray shakes his head. “Sucker,” he says fondly.

Well, it's Ray's favourite holiday, not his.

🎃

On Halloween night Nate rings the doorbell when he comes home from work. It’s not quite dark enough yet but he knows Ray will have a treat bag in his hand when he opens the door.

He does, and his face falls when he sees it’s just Nate. “Oh.”

Nate laughs and leans in to steal a kiss as his treat. “Welcome home, darling. I’m so happy to see you.” 

Ray parrots his words, deadpan, but gives him an extra kiss or two for a proper welcome home. He’s dressed in a spandex skeleton suit, all black except for bright white bones.

“The porch looks good.”

"Doesn't it?" Ray surveys his work with pride. 

Most of the decorations were up at the beginning of the month but Ray added more today to create an even spookier path up from the driveway. The porch wraps around a corner on its way to their front door and Ray hung black curtains along the side to make it more scary. He has smoke machines set up and mats that crackle with each step. The theme this year seems to be haunted skeleton cave.

“I’m glad you decided against a maze,” Nate adds.

The driveway maze they built last year and populated with local teens looking for a little extra cash was far too intensive a process to repeat for another two years at least. Three if Nate could push it.

“I beat old man Jim over on Beacham last year so I can die happy.”

Kids start flooding the street. Nate can hear shrieks of laughter and terror alike and then there’s a barrage of costumed children at their door. Nate hands out the candy, chatting with the parents he knows, and Ray takes every opportunity to jump out of the dark and scare anyone who walks through. Nate enjoys watching Ray spook the kids and comfort the ones who get overwhelmed in equal measure. He always manages to brighten their faces again, and he rarely needs an extra chocolate bar to do it.

It’s over too soon for Ray. When it creeps past nine they know they won’t get anymore kids so they turn the smoke machine and all the lights off and lock the door.

Nate sits on the couch and Ray falls dramatically across his lap. 

“Unzip me,” he demands, even though the zipper of the suit is down the front and he can reach it himself.

“You have perfectly functioning arms.”

“So? Maybe I like it when you take my clothes off.”

Nate unzips his suit.

“We had less kids this year,” Ray muses, almost forlorn as he pulls off the matching gloves of the suit and tosses them onto the other couch.

“We’ll always get less kids than the maze year.”

A gleam shines in Ray’s eyes. “Until we do another maze.”

Nate sighs. It’s mostly to keep up appearances. He’s more than willing to indulge Ray and Ray knows that.

Ray wiggles out of the suit without leaving Nate’s lap. Nate narrowly avoids a whack in the face but can’t escape the elbow that hits him in the chest. Ray is only wearing boxers and a tee shirt underneath.

“Movie time?” he says, only now bothering to roll off Nate’s lap to get the movie set up. This is one of those times where Nate thinks it’ll take a lifetime to understand Ray, but that’s fine because it’s his plan anyway.

"Yeah."

Nate changes into pyjama pants and a tee shirt while Ray pops a disc into the DVD player. It's his job to rent a movie for Halloween, and he knows Nate doesn't like horror so it usually ends up being some shitty B horror movie they end up laughing at. 

Nate settles lengthwise back on the couch and Ray sits between his legs, leaning against his chest. He's got a bowl of chips and the almost full box of Milky Way bars in his lap. 

Nate looks at the box with realization. “Did you manipulate me into buying those so we’d have them as extras?” 

“...No?”

Nate dives over him to grab a handful. Ray snatches the box away too late. 

“Go eat your peanut abominations.”

“There’s none left.”

“ _Good_.”

The movie sucks, as predicted. The acting and visual effects are terrible and soon enough they're crying with laughter. Ray turns it off halfway through and they're plunged into darkness, the only light coming from a few decorations scattering orange and purple glows through the room. 

"I can think of seven better things we could do rather than watch that garbage, and they all involve you with these ridiculous pants off."

“You bought these for me.” They’re patterned all over with rubber ducks and they’re the softest pants Nate owns.

“I know. Because they’re _ridiculous_.” Ray moves the snacks to the coffee table and turns around to kiss Nate, salty and sweet and slow and all consuming. 

"Happy Halloween." His voice is little more than a murmur.

"Happy Halloween," Nate says, with a smile he knows Ray can hear. 

"Let's go upstairs." 

They switch off all the decorations and head upstairs, saying goodnight to another successful Halloween.


End file.
